


please don't say you love me

by roguewrath (purqatory)



Series: cliff's edge [10]
Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Alternate Universe - Historical, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Alternate Universe - World War I, Alternate Universe - World War II, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Somebody Lives/Not Everyone Dies, Soulmates, Undercover
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-18
Updated: 2017-06-18
Packaged: 2018-11-15 11:05:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,337
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11229645
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/purqatory/pseuds/roguewrath
Summary: A concept: A couple near the beginning of time had a love so strong that it couldn't be defeated by death, and so they were reincarnated over and over throughout different eras so that their love would always live on.





	please don't say you love me

**Author's Note:**

> i'm never good enough to make any other these aus to full-length fics so i'm cheating  
> i am also plagiarising myself with a hp ship fic in this format ([x](https://www.fanfiction.net/s/11694262/25/that-almost-between-our-lips))  
> 

**_6_ **

 

She feels him smile into her mouth, and wonders how many girls have tasted it on his lips.

"Jyn..." he mutters, pulling away yet close enough to see the flecks of brown in her green eyes. "It's just me and you, here."

She brushes the sand from the front of his shirt, buying herself time. "You say her name in your sleep." she finally decides to say. He can deny it, he can admit to it. 

"... Who?"

" _Liana_."

"... She's not you, Jyn."

"Did you love her?"

He is silent, which makes it worse: "Maybe. I don't know," she wishes she doesn't like how his fingers card through her loose hair, "I was too busy trying to find her, too anxious to get to her, that I forgot to breathe. To think that maybe she didn't want to be found."

"What happened?" she longs to curl him into her, but he is the one who is sitting up, closing in on himself.

"She died. She died thinking that the only way she won't be found is -" 

"Cassian, don't-" 

 

* * *

_**17** _

 

She badly wants to remember. She can't, though. Whenever she tries to squint, to place a name to the olive-skin, the taunt of his jaw, the slightly-crooked nose, the crows' feet at the corner of his eyes, the melancholy-brown that makes up his eyes, the back of her head wants to cave in, to crush her mind into herself so she can't think, can't trace the man's features long enough to recognize him.

Even his " _Oh, Tanith_." can reach inside her ribcage and crush her heart. But she doesn't know _why_. She doesn't see _how_.

She aches for him to touch her: maybe then she'll remember who he is, who she is, what they were.

But he doesn't. 

Every time he comes to see her, he never moves to touch her.

 

* * *

_**28** _

 

"What does your middle name mean?"

She looks behind her, to check that he is talking to her. She flushes as she turn back to the senior, but he is still grinning. "How - my middle name?"

"Yeah," he points to the steps beside her, and doesn't wait for her to sit. "Lyra. Sounds mythological."

"It's..." she clears her throat, tries to loosen her nerves, "It's from my mother. She's an astronomer."

"Mine's Jeron. It's supposed to be about loyalty, or being trustworthy." he looks away, grimacing at how that sounded. 

"Are you?"

He grins when she doesn't seem to retract how she emoted the question. "I think I am. I hope I am. Kay Soo Jr. is a hard friend to keep."

She smirks, "Bodhi Rook seems to think that, too."

"You know Rook?" 

"My father is his mentor and I met him a few times when he comes over to my house."

He is staring, he knows, but the way her lips bows - "Lucky Bodhi."

 

* * *

_**33** _

 

"Better aim next time, _Fulcrum_."  

"The next time you won't be so lucky." He closes his hand over her wrist, and takes the gun from her.

She lets him, because her hands can be free to yank his collar down, and smuggles the smirk from his lips, away into her pocket, for safe-keeping, for the warmth during a cold night.

"I have fifteen minutes, _Catalyst_." he mutters against her chin, his other hand bunches at the base of her shirt.

She is standing on her tiptoes, so she yanks his belt, to pull him forward and into her, up against the damp alleyway wall. "You _hope_ it's enough."

 

* * *

_**42** _

 

She walks around the manor once, gathers up the surveillance tools she broke a month ago, and throws them into a corner of the barn and locks it up. 

The outskirts of Mexico City is quiet, but not for long. The sun is slowly rising, and Saw is due in an hour. 

She waits until the servants backs out of the room before adding twice the amount of tea, adds only a drop of milk, and allows herself to stir thrice, and place the spoon on the saucer. The delicate tea set is staying on the table, not thrown and broken into pieces across the room. Her eyes scans out to the gardens, for a growl of cars, a flicker of vibrant-orange, a shade of ebony, a breeze of leather.

His mentor, Mothma, gives her a year - to decide whether she joins their cause for good, to heal (her words, never hers) - how can it be enough?

She does not know what is there for her to save, or destroy. She is born within the system, yet with the bloodline of rebels, instead of spies, unlike him; but the thing that they had in common, the very thing that drew them together, is how adapted they already are in being cards constantly at play. That box of cards, however, is scattered into the winds, collecting dust in Pakistan, tucked within books back in England, shoved under stone in China, or buried within the forest floor of Bosque de Chapultepec.  

Her once flawless hands are too rough against sewing needles or muslin cloths; the crease of her forehead is never smooth enough to charm, and her eyes are too dead for her old life.  

She stays in her dead husband's loose trousers and shirt until the help knocks on her door to announce her godfather's arrival. She slips into the master bedroom, takes out his favorite blue Victorian gown, and cinches her corset until she can't properly breathe.

She fiddles with his ring on the chain around her neck, and thinks that she is drowning for another day.

 

* * *

_**45** _

 

She jerks to a stop and he takes the chance to pull them to the back of the building, into a carcass of a helicopter. "They're ready to evacuate."

"Good," the foreign word falls from her lips, and he echoes her; his fingers follows how it shapes her mouth.

"General Solo's supposed to tail me, but I'm meeting our team by the tower." He sees how stained her army jacket is, and he reaches for her opposite shoulder instead; then perhaps he can let go easier. It is the wrong judgement, for she winces and covers her arms so hard his fingers are pushing down onto her bones. "Okay... I can go locate Lieutenant Skywalker."

She tries to extract herself from his arms, but his hands takes her face and makes her face him again. "I'd rather you gather the rest of the wounded, but the second things start to fuck up," he weaves his fingers into her messy braid, and tugs her forward, "You get out of here, you got me?" 

She nods, her hands slips under his shirt. It is the sly adrenaline talking, but it has been so long since he has the time to abandon the need to think and just _be_. 

"Kiss me." she mutters before following swift with her own request.

The hint of iron, hot breath and the lick of invitation and he inhales it all deeply: the scent of her sweat, the tinge of dirt in her hair, and he does what he is told, again and again and again.

One more kiss, another whisper against her temple, "Transmission Tower-" he backs away from her, so close to not having to be further away ever again.

"- I will be waiting." she finishes, and turns around without looking back.

(He will always remember her disappearing from him, like it is her burden, his curse, their fate, a cosmic joke.)

 

* * *

_**56** _

 

"Ten men is not an army of a hundred. It's a suicide mission." 

He flinches, and his grip on his bag is about to loosen when he realizes that her grip on her arms aren't. This is the Krestel Dawn he fell in love with, and it is also the woman who decides this civil war can be ignored if she just doesn't dare to fight back.  

"My friends needs me. The scientist must be stopped."

"They are my friends, too! How can you trust Draven again? Joreth, please-"

"I'm doing what's right. It's not about me choosing you, or the other way around."

Her reflex makes her yell back: "This war has gone long enough and they are committing genocide! I would never make this about us!" 

The paradox of his life wishes she had hit him instead. 

"But don't make me admit it-" she is not letting him close to her for this - " - don't make me admit I won't survive losing you."

 

* * *

_**64** _

 

Baze's off-key singing - _crowing, more like_ \- wakes them, and he mutters against her collarbone that the stoves in his house is in perfect condition to avoid the labor of building a bonfire. She starts to smile so wide, that Kay glares at her when he bursts into the room to make his friend get up and help.

Leia and Bodhi starts to bicker about the best way to skin game, and Cassian joins, but not really taking sides. In the house, Chirrut lets her hover, and assigns her to take dishes and plates out, then when all's set and done, stays by the fire and watches it crack open and blacken the wood. He joins her last, and with the whole group, indulges in the grilled protein and seasoned vegetables as dusk approaches. The forest closes in on them, but the laughter, the songs and the stories from Han's adventures are, a long while since, not tainted by fear. 

Jyn uses the opportunity of gather up more wood for air, so she sits on the pile of cherry wood and breathes. 

She is thinking of it when motors grinds to a halt behind her. The pick axe is in her hand without her realizing it, and trained upon Anakin Skywalker, with his arms above his head. Even his mask over his mouth cannot disguise his grin.

"I bring friends." The man exclaims, gesturing with a flourish behind him. Jyn runs forward to reach him then - _to tear to hurt to pain_ \- as Luke, with shackles still around his wrists, collapses.

 

* * *

_**77** _

 

"Willix, I'm at your six."

"Copy that, Stardust. How's the view?"

"I've seen better." She knows he can hear her grin because she can hear his.

She reminds herself to complain to him how loud he grinds his boots against the pavement as he crawls forward. "Me in uniform, and with the sun setting as the backdrop? Take a picture -"

"- it lasts longer. It's the fifth time you used that line on me. Civilians at eleven."

"Copy that. And it still works, doesn't it?" For her amusement, or just blatantly tries to copy Captain Solo's antics, he flexes his backside mid-crawl, and she scoffs.  

"You wish."

"Oh, I do. Target spotted. Are you with me?"

"All the way."

 

* * *

_**85** _

 

“How did this happen?”

He in his tattered coat, his nails etches in the sleeves to stop himself from scratching his palms bloody. He wants Bodhi to stop repeating the question so he can go back to bed. 

"We will have another plan." Minister Organa looks at his through his stapled hands, "They took out a town to get to her and failed. Her cover is blown."

"Jedha is my fault. But her cover remains intact. The mission can still continue."

"Galen Erso made his choice. There is nothing left to do." Some of his fiancé's pain seeps through her words, and he wants her, wants to hold her, wants to chase away all the pain.

Leia gapes at him, "Cassian- it's her father-"

"There's no other way. Even she understands it." 

 

(Later, he leaves their bed and throws up.

_As his prediction, she stills her heaving chest, but keeps her fingers in his hair. "You're leaving, again."_

_He bits his lip: he loathes how she is voicing it not as a question, but it lands between them, flat as a statement._   _She doesn't even flinch now, when her father is mentioned._

 _"Remember me like this, then", she says; choosing to press the words into his spine, over the ugliest parts of him, makes him writhe and tears jerk to the corners of his eyes, makes him feel how much she means it: "Don't forget how you feel now, how you make me feel"._ )

 

* * *

_**93** _

 

Her voice is emotionless. "You're mad." It's a statement, and he feels heat climbs up his chest: one fuel from just the existence of her, and another from anger.

He wants to turn over, ignore her and she will eventually leave again, but he decides to look at her, creasing his bad cheek at the stiff pillow. "Does it matter? Are my feelings the answer to anything?" The light is dim enough his eyes struggles to seek out her silhouette. She does what she does best, always hiding from him, concealing even her eyes so he can't read her.

"They do, for me." The way she says it makes him want to forget she ever existed.

"If everyone has feelings-" he can't make this about _them_ , because she never allows him to refer _it_ as what it is, "- they care about above others, the world will constantly be at war."

"Only in war will your feelings matter to me. Only in war will _we_ ever have met." 

The way she makes him feel makes him want not to exist.

 

* * *

_**100** _

 

"When was the last time you were in contact with your father?" Cassian Andor asks, moving up to her. His steps takes him from the bask of green light, and she sees him, all of him, in the garb of an Alliance captain.

"Fifteen years ago," she says. Jyn doesn't flinch this time.

 

* * *

**_110_ **

 

" _Jyn! It's Bodhi._ " 

She fumbles with the comm, his blood slippery between her fingers. Their boots are dragging across the edge of the beach, and the salt water stings her legs.

" _We can see you! Hang on! We're coming down -_ "

She feels Cassian's mouth move over her temple, and she clutches his waist closer to her, and feels his heart thundering.

 


End file.
